Ranelagh Reach consisted of a row of six early nineteenth-century houses on that part of the Embankment which forms a link between Westminster and Chelsea. Two of the houses had evidently been taken over lately by well-to-do people, for they had been repainted, and their window-boxes were now filled with ivy-leaved geraniums. The four other houses were shabby-looking and dilapidated, and it was in one of these that there dwelt the woman who had taken as her professional name that of Janet Thrawn. The blinds of No. 1 were down, the brown paint on the front door had peeled, and the steps had evidently not been “done” for days. Everything looked so poverty-stricken that Ivy felt surprised when a very neat and capable-looking maid opened the door in answer to her pull at the old-fashioned bell. She had expected to see a slatternly little girl.
“I’ve come to see Mrs. Thrawn; Mrs. Arundell sent me.”
“I’m not sure that Mrs. Thrawn can see you, miss, unless you’ve made an appointment. But please come in, while I go and see.”
The inside of the little house was in its way as much of a surprise as the maid; it was very different from what the outside would have led the visitor to expect. There was a fine Persian rug on the floor of the narrow hall, and plenty of light came in from a window halfway up the staircase. Affixed to the red walls were plaster casts of hands, forming a curious, uncanny kind of decoration.
After the maid had gone upstairs Ivy Lexton felt a sudden impulse “to cut and run.” A pound note meant a great deal to her just now. But as she was turning towards the front door, the woman came down the steep stairs of the old house.
“Mrs. Thrawn will see you,” she said. Then she turned and preceded the visitor up the staircase.
As they reached the landing the maid murmured:
“Mrs. Thrawn won’t be a moment.”
Ivy Lexton looked round her nervously. There were evidently two rooms on this floor—the front room, of which the blinds were down, and a back room, of which the door was masked by a heavy embroidered green silk curtain. On the patch of wall which formed the third side of the landing was a dark oil painting, bearing on its tarnished gold frame the inscription in black letters, “The Witch.” The subject was that of a white-haired woman being burnt alive, while an evil-looking crowd gloated over the hideous sight.
There came the tinkle of a bell.
“Mrs. Thrawn will see you now,” said the woman shortly, drawing back the curtain to show a door already ajar.
“Come in!” called a full, resonant voice.
Feeling excited and curious, for this was the first time she had ever been to a fortune-teller, Ivy brushed past the maid.
Then she felt a pang of disappointment. The room before her was so very ordinary—just an old-fashioned back drawing-room, containing one or two good pieces of furniture, while on the chimneypiece stood a row of silver-gilt Indian ornaments.
Even the soothsayer, the obvious owner of this room, impressed her client as being almost commonplace. At any rate there was nothing mysterious or romantic about her appearance. She was a tall, powerful-looking woman, nearer sixty than fifty. Her grey hair was cut short, and she was clad in an old-fashioned tea-gown, of bright blue cashmere, which fell from her neck to her feet in heavy folds.
The most remarkable feature of Mrs. Thrawn’s face was her eyes. They were light hazel, luminous, compelling eyes, and as Ivy Lexton advanced rather timidly towards her they became dilated, as if with a sudden shock of gripping, overwhelming surprise.
Yet nothing could have appeared at once more simple and more attractive than this lovely girl who wanted to take a peep into the future. Ivy Lexton looked almost a child in her flesh-coloured cotton frock and the simple pull-on brown hat which framed her exquisite little face.
Making a determined effort over herself, Mrs. Thrawn withdrew her astonished and, indeed, affrighted, glance from her visitor, and said coldly, “I cannot give you long this morning, for I have an appointment”—she looked at her wristwatch—“in twenty minutes. I suppose you know my fee is a pound, paid in advance?”
Ivy felt a touch of resentment. Only twenty minutes for a whole pound? Yet she was beginning to feel the compelling power of the woman, and so, slowly, she took the one-pound note that remained to her out of her bag.
Mrs. Thrawn slipped the note into one of the patch pockets of her gown, and motioned her visitor to a low stool, while she sat down, herself, in a big armchair opposite. For a moment Ivy felt as she had felt when as a little girl she was going to be scolded.
“We will begin with your hands. No! Not like that. Your left hand first, please, and the back to start with.”
As she took Ivy’s hand in her cool firm grasp Mrs. Thrawn said quietly, “I need not tell you that you have amazing powers of—well, keeping your own counsel, when it suits you to do so.”
Then she turned the hand she held over, and taking a small lens out of the pocket where now lay Ivy’s one-pound note, she closely scrutinised the lines crisscrossing the rosy palm.
“You’ve the most extraordinary fate-line that I’ve ever seen—and that’s saying a very great deal,” she observed.
“What I want to know,” began Ivy eagerly, “is—”
“Whether there is going to be any change for the better in your life?”
The fortune-teller waited a moment, and, lifting her head, she gave her client a long measuring look. “Yes, there is going to be a great change in your life. But as to whether it will be for the better or for the worse—?”
Mrs. Thrawn hesitated for what seemed to the other a long time. But at last she exclaimed, “From your
